Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 15
April 17, 2024
A Cautionary Tale For New Writers
.
John Barth died recently and I very much wanted to do an appreciation of his work.
But there was a problem.
Giles Goat-Boy was the first Big Fat Literary Book I ever tackled. This was back when it first came out, and I was fourteen. So it was an important book for me. Unfortunately, it contained a black character, an apish, indiscriminate rapist so unpleasantly drawn that it took me aback. Even then, when I knew nothing about race and sex and people, this portrayal seemed... strange? ...cruelly caricaturish? ...offensive? Ultimately, I shoved it aside, figuring I'd understand it better when I knew something about race and sex and people.
Now that I know, perhaps, something about race and sex and people, I recognize the character as a failed attempt at satire and irony. But that doesn't make it any less loathsome.
Barth was in his day considered a major writer and definitely, at a minimum, Canon track. The Sot-Weed Factor, whose young protagonist, Ebenezer Cooke, signs himself "poet and virgin" and becomes the Poet Laureate of colonial Maryland, was a wonderful creation. But I didn't have the time to reread that discursive treasure chest of prose, so I determined instead to write about "The Dunyazadiad," one of three novellas in Chimera.
I loved the premise, which was that Sheherazade of the Thousand Nights and a Night was, with the help of her sister Dunyazade, anachronistically trying to solve, with yellow pads and sharpened pencils, the problem of Sharyar raping and killing a virgin a night when a Genie appears who knows the solution because he's John Barth himself. Who has for most of his life loved the book which she will be the heroine of.
Much of what ensued consisted of Sheherazade and Barth wonking about writing fiction. Catnip for a gonnabe writer like me. At one point Barth and Scherazade talked about framing a story and speculated that it might be possible to frame a story from inside. Which is, extraordinarily, what The Dunyazadiad accomplished.
But right in the middle of this fantasia of rowdy sex and literature is the following sentence fragment: ...and found my sister-in-law cuckolding my brother with the blackamoor Sa'ad al-din Saood, who swung from trees, slavered and gibbered, and sported a yard that made mine look like your little finger.
Eek.
I couldn't exactly present this story to you, saying, "Drink deep of this lovely story. It's only got one racist turd in it." So I gave up on writing a memorial until I could come up with something a little more nuanced. This post, I hope.
There is a lesson here for gonnabe writers: Don't punch down. Be wild, be free, be daring, don't hesitate to lambaste those in power. But don't punch down. Satire is a tool to be used against those with power and pretension. Don't employ it against those who have neither. John Barth did, and as a result we all think the less of him--and, more importantly, his work--because of it.
End of sermon. Go thou and sin no more.
And speaking of John Barth . . .
I met him. My senior year at William & Mary, he entranced a crowded auditorium with a reading from The Dunyazadiad. His voice soft with love, he read, "'All those nights at the foot of that bed, Dunyazade!' he exclaimed. 'You've had the whole literary tradition transmitted to you--'" Here, he paused to let a smutty laugh pass through the audience before continuing, "'and the whole erotic tradition too!'" He knew how to read a story, and how to play the audience as well. Like a trout at the end of a line.
Afterward, the English Department had a gathering (seniors only) in his honor. I stood by, awestruck and silent, as he and Dr. David Clay Jenkins discussed colonial governor Francis Nicholson. "What a mean man!" Dr. Jenkins exclaimed.
"Yes," Barth agreed, "but he had something."
And that simple exchange epitomized for me why it was I had sunk four years into obtaining a liberal arts education. So that someday I could talk as knowledgeably about esoteric matters with intelligent strangers.
*
April 16, 2024
The Annotated STATIONS OF THE TIDE (Part 2)
.
Page 7:
theOuter Circle: The far regions of the Prosperan System. Allthe most dangerous research is conducted as far from population centers aspossible.
Page 9:
Continent:There being onlyone continent, it needs no other name.
sparrowfish:The Great Wintermorph of what is, in the Great Summer, a rainbird.
Page 12:
Witch Cults of Whitemarsh: The chapterheading was inspired by Margaret Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe andwas meant to suggest that the witch cults of the Tidewater are matriarchal instructure.
[themagic trick explained]: Thisis a change on the original Vanishing Bird Cage trick, which relied on theaudience not knowing that the dove inside the cage had been squashed when itcollapsed.
Page 13:
LaserfieldAcademy: Like manyprivate academies, Laserfield is named after its location. Since the originaltechnology of the field, whether for communications or planetary defense, islong obsolete, it can be assumed that this is a very old name, from the earlydays of Miranda’s colonization.
elfinbone:Ivory, derivedfrom the German word “Elfinbein.” I had thought it an archaic word but recentlyI have seen it claimed that Jorge Luis Borges credited James Joyce with itscreation for Finnegans Wake. Either way, it is a charming word.
Page 14:
CaptainBergier: This“scrawny-bearded poet,” edging into senility, is an avatar of Ezra Pound. This wasinspired the following lines from Bob Dylan’s “Destination Row:”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
LikePound, Captain Bergier has been driven to the edge of madness by his economic theoretics.
Page 17:
Lightfoot:A small town inthe Virginia Tidewater, not far from Williamsburg.
Page 20:
fleur-de-vie:“Flower of life,”the vagina.
*
@font-face {font-family:Courier; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 3 0;}@font-face {font-family:"MS Mincho"; panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4; mso-font-alt:"‚l‚r –¾’©"; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 134217746 0 131231 0;}@font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}@font-face {font-family:"\@MS Mincho"; panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 134217746 0 131231 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning:1.0pt;}p.MsoPlainText, li.MsoPlainText, div.MsoPlainText {mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-link:"Plain Text Char"; margin:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Courier; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}span.PlainTextChar {mso-style-name:"Plain Text Char"; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-locked:yes; mso-style-link:"Plain Text"; font-family:Courier; mso-ascii-font-family:Courier; mso-hansi-font-family:Courier; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning:0pt;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ligatures:none;}.MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only;}div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}
April 14, 2024
COMICOSMICS! Coming Soon!!!
.
Set your alarm clocks! Marianne has announced the sell-date for Dragonstairs Press' latest chapbook. As usual, it will sell out in a matter of minutes. I'm not exaggerating here. As Will Sonnet used to say, "No brag, just fact."
Here's the announcement letter as Marianne sent it out:
Saturday the 20th of April, noon, EDT, Dragonstairs Press will be launching Comicosmics at dragonstairs.com.
Comicosmics is Michael Swanwick's homage to Italo Calvino, cleverly inverted from the original. Henry Wessells said of it, "[this] book is an entire intergalactic philosophical novel within the compass of near infinity, and six printed pages. It is one of the several things that Michael Swanwick does best."
Comicosmics was launched at the 2024 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida. It was issued in an edition of 50, of which 47 were available for sale. 35 remain. The chapbook is 8 ½” by 5 ½” and is hand-stitched and bound in black lokta paper, silk-screened with metallic images. All are numbered and signed by the author.
--
editor, publisherDragonstairs Press
April 11, 2024
The Shockwave Rider!
.
Look what came in the mail! The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. Brunner was one of the biggest names in science fiction when he wrote this novel, and in many ways this was a high-water mark in his career. It is also the book wherein Brunner contributed a new word to the English language when he named the computer "worm." (For those unfamiliar with the term, a computer virus is downloaded into a computer via attachments, where a worm is an independent agent that finds its own way in.)
This beautifully-made edition comes from Subterranean Press, and I had the honor of writing its introduction.
While working on the introduction, I realized that because Brunner was writing a near-future novel, its hour arrived not long ago and it is now an alternate-history novel. Where much of its pleasure originally came from wondering how many of its predictions would come true, today that pleasure consists of seeing which predictions came true (a surprising number) and which did not. Meanwhile, the plot is still involving.
John Brunner had the sad distinction of being the first science fiction writer to die while attending the World Science Fiction Convention. I was there, in Glasgow, when the rumor ran like wildfire through the convention: John Brunner collapsed and was taken to the hospital! Followed shortly by: He's dead.
There was a hastily-created memorial to Brunner at the convention and, again, I was there. Robert Silverberg, obviously heartbroken by the death of a friend, spoke movingly of the man, his life, his career, and his works. Then, brilliantly, he said that since a writer was a form of entertainer, rather than a minute of silence he was going to request a minute of applause.
The response was thunderous.
And it's anticlimactic to mention this but . . .
If you want to buy a copy, you can order it here. Or, you know, just go to centipedepress.com and wander about, occasionally lusting after the books there.
*
O. J. Now O. J. Then O. J. Forevermore
.
O. J. Simpson has died and all the frogs in the pond are croaking. The narrative they push is, mostly, that white America saw his trial as a rich man getting away with murder and Black America seeing the trial as a racist police department framing another Black man. Which is true enough but not enlightening.
I confess that I fell into the first camp. But then Marianne and I were at a friend's party where, as it chanced, we were the only white people. The conversation, all about the trial, was nuanced and thoughtful and definitely not on the side of the LAPD. And then Stanley (our host) came up with a formula that made sense of it all.
Guilty, he said. AND framed.
Stan's insight not only explained why the famous glove didn't fit but reconciled me to the verdict. When a guilty man gets away with murder, that's injustice. When the police plant evidence to convict somebody just because they don't like him, a conviction is an assault against the very concept of justice.
Freeing O. J. was the right thing to do.
It is entirely my own personal opinion, not backed up by any information that was not available to all the world already when I add the word "alas."
Above: Photo taken from Politico's take on O. J.'s life. You can find it here.
*
Shockwave Rider!
.
Look what came in the mail! The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. Brunner was one of the biggest names in science fiction when he wrote this novel, and in many ways this was a high-water mark in his career. It is also the book wherein Brunner contributed a new word to the English language when he named the computer "worm." (For those unfamiliar with the term, a computer virus is downloaded into a computer via attachments, where a worm is an independent agent that finds its own way in.)
This beautifully-made edition comes from Centipede Press, and I had the honor of writing its introduction.
While working on the introduction, I realized that because Brunner was writing a near-future novel, its hour arrived not long ago and it is now an alternate-history novel. Where much of its pleasure originally came from wondering how many of its predictions would come true, today that pleasure consists of seeing which predictions came true (a surprising number) and which did not. Meanwhile, the plot is still involving.
John Brunner had the sad distinction of being the first science fiction writer to die while attending the World Science Fiction Convention. I was there, in Glasgow, when the rumor ran like wildfire through the convention: John Brunner collapsed and was taken to the hospital! Followed shortly by: He's dead.
There was a hastily-created memorial to Brunner at the convention and, again, I was there. Robert Silverberg, obviously heartbroken by the death of a friend, spoke movingly of the man, his life, his career, and his works. Then, brilliantly, he said that since a writer was a form of entertainer, rather than a minute of silence he was going to request a minute of applause.
The response was thunderous.
And it's anticlimactic to mention this but . . .
If you want to buy a copy, you can order it here. Or, you know, just go to centipedepress.com and wander about, occasionally lusting after the books there.
*
April 10, 2024
Curating Gordo: An Interview with Nhora Lucía Serrano
.
Depicting Mexico andModernism: Gordo by Gus Arriola/Mexico Y El Modernismo: Gordo de GusArriola
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum
December 13, 2023 - May 5, 2024
Dr. Nhora Lucía Serrano is an EarlyModern Comparative Literature scholar at Hamilton College. Recently,she curated a show at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum inColumbus, Ohio, on cartoonist Gus Arriola and his syndicated comicstrip, Gordo. Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter joined her viaZoom for a conversation about the exhibit.
Michael Swanwick: This is,I believe, the first retrospective of Gus Arriola's work ever. Itseems almost impossible, given how popular that comic strip was whenhe was drawing it.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: DuringGus's lifetime, toward the end of the run of the strip and after heretired, there were shows in Carmel and Monterrey in SouthernCalifornia, where he resided and because he was friends with EldonDedini and other local cartoonists. In 1968 Gus did one show withDedini and Charles Schultz at the Richmond Art Center in California.In 1983 he did another show with Dedini and Hank Ketcham (Americancartoonist who created Dennis the Menace). Lifelong friends, Dediniand Arriola exhibited many times together in their lifetime. However,these exhibits all took place in Southern California and, as we know,at the time the bigger draws were Dedini, Ketcham and Schultz, whowere very well known, and drew in lots of people. But Schultz,Ketcham and Dedini were very much friends with Gus Arriola, and theyrespected him and his artistry and his storytelling.
But until thisexhibit at OSU there hasn't been a non-Southern California show thatreally has an international draw, and by that I mean the BillyIreland Cartoon Library and Museum exhibits are meant to be nationalshows. So “Depicting Mexico and Modernism” is the firstretrospective by this categorization of “international/national,”implying that the audience is meant to consist of folks beyond aparticular local region.
The other reason why I would say it's aretrospective is that even those shows with Schultz, Ketcham, andDedini were meant to be sort of snippets of his cartoon work, certainstrips in conjunction. The Carmel Art Association also did anexhibit, but it was just more highlights of his artwork, not to thelarge scale that is “Depicting Mexico and Modernism.”
There werelovely shows back in the sixties, the seventies and the eighties.Even in the nineties, I think there was one show. But this is thefirst retrospective in the sense of you see the original strip at thebeginning and you see the development of the strip throughout its 40-year run. It's really giving you the body of work of Gus Arriola,from the strips on the wall to the items in the cases, so as to givefirst-time visitors to Gus Arriola’s Gordo a sort of holisticunderstanding. And to fans like yourself, to enjoy a lot of differentsamplings as best as possible.
Michael Swanwick: Your show has whatlooks to be the first strip for Gordo. It is an amazing thing to see,especially if you're familiar with what he quickly became. He startedout as a lazy, unkempt slob and he very soon became the exactopposite of that. He was very nattily turned out, quite a ladies man,and in his way he was hard working.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Yes, it'sincredible. On the gallery wall, I decided we would have the firststrip so people could see the original first strip. But we blew it upas a large decal, so that people could read it bigger. It's obviouslybigger than the original newspaper size. The Billy Ireland does ownthe original strip. Visitors are welcome to go see it as well as alot of the strips. But yes, you see, right away in that first stripthat it was Gordo and his nephew Pepito: the language and thedialect, what he was doing, all of which was in that moment of the1940s. Very quickly he changed things, but he changed them slightly,and he kept changing and, I would say, evolving. But that first stepis important for everyone to see, whether you read Gordo or not, justto see where it started.
Michael Swanwick: At that time so much ofAmerican humor was ethnic. Fat, angry Germans, drunken Irishmen!There was a stereotype for everybody.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I wouldagree. There was a stereotype for everybody, and we have to rememberthat this is Southern California and that Gus Ariolla's first job outof high school was with Screen Gems, being an animator, hanging outin Hollywood and being influenced by Hollywood's caricatures andrepresentations of ethnic characters. Many newspapers at the timereferred to Gordo as the Mexican Li’l Abner. Even Gus did. It washis first strip, his first moment.
Marianne Porter: The elevatorpitch.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Exactly, and that also explains, if weare all familiar with Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, the way it waswritten with that sort of phonetic sounds of the language, a mockdialect to convey the main character. Of course it too slowly evolvedto something else. But I would agree with you, Michael, that was thestandard. We have to remember the context of the time in which thiswas created.
Michael Swanwick: At some point, Arriola started goingto Mexico. All the accounts of the strip make a big deal about how hebecame an “accidental ambassador,” as was said, for Mexicanculture. But I think at the same time that Mexican culture enrichedhis strip tremendously when he brought it in.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Iagree. He was of Mexican heritage. He grew up knowing some Spanish,and being exposed to the culture. I'm a firm believer that, as hesaid in many interviews, his intent was to explore and to showcasehis Mexican heritage.
In the strip at the beginning, as well as, asyou said, the elevator pitch—a Mexican Li’l Abner—he started toexplore and to learn more about Mexico. Essentially, his drawingswere based on—and again, we have to remember the forties andfifties—postcards, tourist magazines, right? There was no Internetor YouTube. So he was using references, other illustrations is theway I think of it. And in 1960 he decided, with his group ofcartoonist friends, including Dedini, whose photos are in theexhibit, to go to Mexico. It was something of a homecoming for himand it changed the direction of the strip in an impactful way. If youstudy the whole strip, he felt more liberated and began playing withthe story visually as well as story-wise. There was limited space inthe gallery, not enough to show an episode carried over a month ortwo. But also he was really into telling stories that didn’t needto be episodic.
After that trip, the strip sees Mexico not just as‘Over There Across the Border,’ but as Gordo’s world. There's acertain celebration in it that became much more vibrant, and I don'tmean that just color-wise, just more relaxed, more playful. Which islovely, and it was always there. It's playful, but there's certainfreedom with it after the sixties, and that's where I think a lot ofhis playing with modernist art started to come in. He saw Mexicanpottery in Mexico. He saw the Aztec culture in the buildings, andit's just something... I wouldn't say Mexico popped up, but just toyou could see it sort of permeating more.
Marianne Porter: So Gordo'sprofession changes from farmer to tour guide. When did that happen?Was that when Gus went to Mexico, or was it before?
Nhora LucíaSerrano: That's a great question. It was before Mexico. So that's whyit wasn't like when Gus went physically to Mexico everything changedin the strip. He had already been on this pathway, really. So if wetalk about the early strip and the ethnic caricature, he had alreadychanged Gordo from its early caricature representation before histrip to Mexico. Gordo was indeed a bean farmer at the who was alsoseen as being lazy. The transformation is to ne is no longer idle, heis now driving a bus (Haley's Comet), and he's showing everybody,including readers, all the different places in Mexico. More of theAztec culture. He’s flirting with the American women who come downto Mexico, but also saying, “Hey, let’s go over here.” Or thetourists say, “Let’s go see this.”
To me, that's veryreminiscent of the fifties and sixties Hollywood movies where theywere essentially travel movies. I'm thinking of the Bing Crosby andBob Hope road movies. I'm thinking of one of my favorite old movies,Charleton Heston's Secret of the Incas. In that movie, if you look itup online Heston is wearing the Indiana Jones jacket and fedora andthe whole outfit. And that's what Steven Spielberg based the wholecostume on.
Marianne Porter: Heston did some very strange movies inhis time.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I would agree. And there were a lotof movies at that time that were essentially exploring foreign lands.You know, precursors to a lot of movies today. So to your question.Gordo was a bus driver before Arriola went to Mexico, but Gus Arriolahad already started to change the strip and go, “Wait a minute. Iwant to do something different.” So he started to do somethingdifferent in the strip, and he became very curious to see the placesin Mexico.
Michael Swanwick: I want to mention that all the exhibitcaptions are in Spanish and English both, which I thought was verygraceful for this particular strip.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Oh, thankyou. Thank you so much. It was something I decided early on. Therewere two reasons why. As a curator, you look at the gallery space andwhat it has to offer you. I had to make choices based on the space,but I also wanted to tell a certain story, and I knew I wanted thewalls to be just the strip and the display cases to show other itemsrelated to the Gordo strip. I wanted the strips to be the highlightof the show. So that's why it's "Gordo by Gus Arriola."
ButI also knew that I wanted to do a bilingual show for two reasons.One, the strip introduced Spanish words at the time, and always usedSpanish throughout the duration of the strip. I thought doing abilingual signage for the displays, section titles, wall labels, andeverything else would be organic to the intent of what Gus Arriolawanted for Gordo. So that was something I thought it would highlight.I wanted to have Spanish and English in the show, not just in thestrip, to normalize bilingualism.
And the other reason was, I wantedto do a show, an exhibit, where families from the Latino communitycould come and read one of their own. Besides the fact that I loveGus Arriola and Gordo, I wanted to do the retrospective show for somany reasons. One of them was, I wanted the Latino community to seeone of their own.
One of my lifetime projects is that the history ofAmerican comics should include in its canon ethnic cartoons and GusArriola. A question that I always return to: Why isn’t Gus Arriolamore known in the mainstream? So I wanted the Latino community to seethat there is representation in the history of American comics, andfor them to see themselves and to appreciate one of their own.
Michael Swanwick: It was really good to see the Baldo comics done inhomage to Gordo.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Hector Cantú, who's thewriter for Baldo, and Carlos Castellanos, the cartoonist—they workas a team… Hector was there at the grand opening, and he told thisvery interesting story. When they first were syndicated early on,during one of their early interviews, someone said, Oh, you're thefirst Latino comic strip to be syndicated.” And Hector said, “GusArriola came before me."
Hector and Carlos reached out to Gusbefore he passed away and said, “Hey, let us introduce ourselves.We would love to do a homage to Gordo in our strip.” It was astoryline over, I think, five days, with a direct reference to thecharacter of Gordo. In the strip on display in the exhibit, you seetheir main character, Baldo, and his family. According to Hector,they're not meant to be Mexican or Peruvian or any specificethnicity. They're supposed to be Hispanic, so that all readers cansort of read themselves in it. Or read any Hispanic ethnicity in it.One of the characters is Tia Carmen, Baldo's great-aunt, and shestarts to reminisce of the time she went to Mexico and met Gordo.
Marianne Porter: I love that scenario. She was a young woman then,and she almost had a romance with him.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: WhatHector told us at the opening was that they asked Gus to draw aprofile of Gordo meeting the old woman in a flashback, in one of thestrips and Gus said, "I'm too old. My hand isn't steady. You goahead, you draw it." They showed everything to Gus before it waspublished. Hector went on to say that Gus was very gracious, hepraised them, and he only made one edit in the strip. At one pointthe Gordo character was going to say something like "Thank you,senoritas.” The word for young ladies. And Gus Arriola said, "No,that's not what Gordo would say. He would say, palomitas, littledoves. Because that's the slang in Mexico" of the time period.This edit makes it charming. So Gus gave him that one edit, andHector said, “Yeah, of course I kept it.”
They consider him theprecursor and they got his blessing. It was very much a professionalfriendship. Hector and Carlos often talk about the greatness of GusArriola, and that without Gordo many in one of the strips newspaperswould not be accepting of Latino cartoonists. So they pay him greathomage.
Marianne Porter: Well they should, but good for them.
NhoraLucía Serrano: Yes. The other person in the exhibit was LaloAlcaraz, American cartoonist who is known for his syndicated,politically focused strip La Cucaracha, and who is very well known atthis moment. He was a consultant for the movie Coco. He's dabbling infilms in Hollywood, and is just a wonderful and talented editorialcartoonist. Since he hit the cartoonist scene, he's alwaysacknowledged that he's walking in the pathway created by Gus Arriola.He did one—because he does sort of single strips at times—wherehe pays homage to Gordo’s Bug Rogers. And then, when Gus Arriolapassed away, he did an essentially In Memoriam strip for him.
Thesetwo strips, La Cucaracha and Baldo, for me, would not be here withoutGordo in many ways. That's the legacy of Gus Arriola and Gordo. Thesetwo strips and many others.
Michael Swanwick: I'd like to comment onthe word modernism in the title. It is really striking, when you getto see the artwork close up, how he combined traditional Mexicanvisual arts with modernism. He could have made a very profitableliving as a commercial artist.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: He could have.He was an artist. It's interesting, when we think of the deadlines hehad to meet for daily strips, as cartoonists work a couple of monthsin advance, and all the work involved, it is amazing how quickly andbeautifully he drew and told a story.
But nonetheless, two thoughtshere. You’re right, he incorporated a lot of Mexican into hisstrip-- not just culture in the story, but also the visual arts likepottery and craft, which is something that really drew my attention.In the exhibit, I included the strip of the Mexican pottery with thesilhouettes around because it was very much striking to me, andbecause it demonstrated the influence of his early career as ananimator on his strip. That's why I had a colleague of mine animateit so that all viewers could see the silhouette figuresmove—essentially a tug of war between Gordo, Pepito and theanimals. I wasn't trying to do a gimmick. I must say, I worried aboutthat. I didn't want it to be gimmicky. I just wanted to show histhinking, artistry, and humor.
Marianne Porter: As you go around thepot, the story unfolds.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Essentially he's doingsomething like Egyptian vases. He's a narrative storyteller. It wasmimicking this old art form. But then, as you see the rest of thestrips on the walls, you start to realize he has a pacing that he isalso drawing from Egyptian vases. He knows what he's doingconsistently. Also, the Mexican pots are a repetitive motifthroughout the strip in various ways, whether they're primary focusor whether they're in the background. For example, some of the stripson the wall tell you how to make a pinata using terracotta pots.Mexican pottery appears quite a bit throughout the run of the strip,which is delightful and impactful.
Michael Swanwick: As a sciencefiction writer, I have a particular fondness for his long narrativestretches. Some of what he wrote was definitely science fiction,including my favorite story in all comics where he meets the his“dream gorl,” his perfect woman, and falls in love with her.Then, slowly, he comes to realize that nobody else can see her. She'sa personification of everything that is perfect about women to him.He manages to adjust to this and decide that even if nobody else cansee her, he's going to marry her.
Then she doesn't show up one day.
And when she shows, up she explains that there's an Italian filmmakerwho has the same dream girl. So they fight a duel for her. Gordo goesup on top of a hill in Mexico and the filmmaker atop a hill in Italy.They fight with their imaginations to visualize her. She fades outand fades back in. And finally Gordo loses and she is gone forever.
It was a heartbreaking little story. I've always loved that one.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: That is beautiful. And you're right. It'ssomething I've given great thought. There are a lot of episodes, thatone obviously very special. And I should say there are other genresone could see in Gordo, though, and I know this isn't your question,but I chose modernism as opposed to other topics as a theme to unifya forty-year run strip. Also, I selected modernism to make certainthat people could see the artistry of Gordo as well as thestorytelling element. As a curator, my job is to create a story thathighlights the strip and the cartoonist. And for forty-year run,strip, I choose ‘Mexico’ and ‘Modernism’ because it allowsthe visitor to walk away from the exhibit, learning a lot, andyearning for more Gordo.
You're right. That episode would have been abeautiful story. But there wasn’t the wall space.
Marianne Porter: I have this crackpot theory about curators, magazine editors, concertprogrammers--that you're all giving us a map. You're all leading usdown a particular path. You have a place you want to bring us to. Youjust now said that you were trying to make sure that you highlightedthis really very long-lasting strip and the artistry behind it. Werethere any special points where you wanted us to stop on the path andlook at something: smaller but more focused, maybe, or...
Nhora LucíaSerrano: That's an excellent question. There were small specialpoints I highlighted for the visitor. And because I didn't haveenough time or enough space to develop them more, I left littleclues, hopefully.
Here's the first one that comes to mind. I find sointeresting that Gus took the role of Pepito, and had Pepito grew upthrough the strip. If you remember the exhibit, the Billy Ireland hasoriginal artwork in which Pepito is much older, he's dressed better,playing with his uncle, and I make note in a label very quickly thatPepito’s grown up and that this is very much like in the characterSkeezix in Frank King's Gasoline Alley. In the museum label, I wastrying to connect the dots for the first-time visitor that there's aninfluence of Gasoline Alley storytelling on Gordo. So that would beone where I was trying to leave little clues for people to ask,“What's Gasoline Alley?” in case people didn't know, and “Really?Pepito grew up? What else is there?” To me it's very important.It's a small one. But one of the important little details for story.
Marianne Porter: Pepito grows up, and Gordo ages a little, but nomore than a smidge. And the housekeeper, Tehuana Mama, she doesn't,really. She's got an ageless quality to her.
Nhora Lucía Serrano:She does. Time doesn't really pass for her. Pepito’s the one wherewe see time passing. Unless we understand the context of the story,the strip doesn’t reflect real time outside the strip. Neither Gusnor the characters make references to the real world. This issomething curious, Michael. I'm sort of curious from yourrecollection of reading the strip. Gus didn't really break the fourthwall and make references to real life historical contexts, would youagree? If anything, for me, he was foreshadowing a lot of art ideasand social topics before they actually happened. There arecartoonists who would bring in political elections or anything else.But Gus really had Gordo in its own universe.
Michael Swanwick:Except for one thing, which is he was an environmentalist who wasvery concerned about the physical state of the world. To such adegree that, if I recall correctly, the last we see of Pepito, he andhis girlfriend or maybe she was his fiancé by then, who showed upfirst as a little Texan girl, go off in a spaceship to anotherplanet. Because he can't picture a positive future for them here.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: That is true. I have not seen those strips inperson. That's through my research. So I'm hoping when I can get tothe Bancroft this summer, I can look at those strips and develop thatchapter on the environment for my book. But you're right. What wewould call today the environmental concerns, he was definitely avanguard in that sense. That's the only one that he really... Iwouldn't say broke the fourth wall, but had a reference to real lifeoutside of the strip. You're right.
Michael Swanwick: But at the sametime he was not being overly political. He wasn't pointing fingers atspecific politicians or corporations. He was just concerned about theEarth as a whole.
Marianne Porter: There is also coming into thestrip an awareness of things that are happening in art and in music,such as rock and roll.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Yes, there is. One thatluckily I put up on the wall, is his fascination with sound, and howto depict sound and music in a strip—he plays with color, layoutand font. (There's one on the wall which he signs by Dessie Bell.Decibel. He makes that pun.) But again I would say, he's makingreference, perhaps to music or change in music. Right? Bug Rogers isa character referencing the sixties. But he doesn't really stepcompletely out of the strip and make a real-life world reference. Ithink in some ways he kept Gordo and all the characters within theworld of the strip.
I don't know. It's much more subtle in Gordo.It's a different time. Who knows? If he were writing today, would thesense of time and sound be different?
In answer to a question youhaven't asked, which is why, when you first walk into the exhibit,the first thing you see from a distance is a large decal of the comicstrip blown up on the far wall, what I call the intro and welcomewall to the exhibit. I wanted all of you to walk into the stripmetaphorically and literally. I wanted people to feel what I call theMary Poppins moment, where you could step into the comic strip andinto Gordo’s world. Also, when you first walk in, the immediatething that your eye catches is the A-frame display case, and what Iwanted the viewer's eye to go to was a photo of a young Gus Arriolawith an accompanying label saying: Cartoonist, Illustrator, Artist—he has many identities. And then below this photo, you have the endof Gordo, that big of blow up of Tehuana Mama and Gordo dancingtogether.
To me it's a strip of love, the whole thing. Whether peoplewere falling in love or not, there was love infused in all of this.He loved his characters, he loved this world.
Marianne Porter: Andthe characters all love each other. They all care so much about eachother.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: They do. The animals are so fun. They'refamily.
Marianne Porter: I like the drunken worms.
Nhora LucíaSerrano: Oh, my God! The drunken worms are just hilarious. In makingdecisions of to what put up on the wall, I was trying to include asmany of the animals so the exhibit would have a little bit ofeverything, thus, the worms had to go up. Because they're funny.
Andthey're inebriated.
Michael Swanwick: Pixelated.
Nhora LucíaSerrano: There we go! Well, and in that last wall, I wanted it to beabout all Bug Rogers, because I think there was something veryspecial with that character. It was one that really offered, like allthe animals, but more so insight into life. Bug Rogers really offeredthe philosophy of life through commentaries, and it was veryprofound, even though, when you first see and read it you think, “Oh,that's fun and funny!” And then if you read it again. You're like,"Oh, that's pretty profound."
And the animals all offered that type ofinsight. Also, I was hoping that the show would attract families onweekends. I wanted children to be exposed to the strip. As children,we read things and catch something, and I thought the animals willcatch their attention and see the playfulness of the strip. I thinkthe animals are fun.
Marianne Porter: Oh, absolutely. I thought boththe text and the signage, the graphic imagery, were really good andreally involving. The fact that you, when you get off the elevator,there's a group of the character running along the wall, and you justrun along with them and then get you to where you need to go.
NhoraLucía Serrano: Thank you, I would say that's something the BillyIreland has been trying to do with the decals for all of theirexhibits to help the visitor know where it is located.
Going into theBilly Ireland, you have to go upstairs, whether by stairs orelevator, and you have to go around the atrium. And so finding adecal that is essentially running also helps lead the visitor to thegallery. Also, the decals on the gallery wall were very strategic. Iwanted them to reference the very walls on which they are located andallow people to see a snippet of the strip but bigger. One of mypersonal favorite decals is in the corner when you go from the Mexicosection to the bean sections. In the bottom corner there is a yucaplant in two colors—the left part of the yuca is light greenwhereas the right part of the plant is teal in color. This yuca plantextends from one wall to another, which is mimicking how it is in oneof the Gordo strips, where it extends from one panel to another.
The other decals are also quite charming and eye-catching: Gordocarrying the bean pot while running along with Pepito and theanimals, the kids reading the newspaper, and Pepito as a modernistartist wearing a beret while drawing.
The other great decal in theexhibit is the one where there are a lot of the sleeping animals—itis located on an inside wall as you go into the other gallery;they're taking a little nap as you leave the show. Just littlemoments like that I hope are fun for the museum visitor and the GusArriola fan. Mostly, these choices are a reflection of the fact thatI wanted the strip to speak for itself. Yet there are choices youhave as a curator, one which I was asked by the Billy Ireland staffwas, "Do you want the wall painted a certain color?"
Keepin mind that the Billy Ireland staff is very generous and supportive.They seek to support the curator’s vision as well as the comics.Back to the wall color question --I said, no, I want the strip tojump out so let’s leave the walls white. And so, it occurred to me,I want the decals from the strip, and I want them to jump. And voilàwe have decals everyone giving the visitor small windows into thestrip.
Michael Swanwick: I understand you're working on a book aboutGordo. Can you tell us about it?
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Yes. Obviouslyan exhibit like this is a great beginning for the book. But as we'vetalked about, the exhibit can't cover everything that a book canlike, as you mentioned, episodes and stories… There are certainchoices I had to make and couldn't cover everything. And so I'mworking on a scholarly book with hopefully a lot of images. I'mcurrently speaking with a couple of publishers to see who would beinterested. There's many books about cartoonists right? There's bookson Charles Schultz. There's books on George Herriman. I want to writea book that essentially talks about what Gus Arriola did. And tothink of it, I see a chapter or early chapters on his relationship tonot just animation, but George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and Li’lAbner. Where did this come from? What the exhibit gives you, goingback to your earlier question, is only a little tidbit of what theinfluences are. I just did those two display cases, and it was veryquick. To me, that's a chapter discussing where does Gordo fit in?What were the influences? Where was he borrowing? What was hechanging? What was he innovating?
And so, to your question. I amwriting a book because, to be honest, no one has in written such abook, and I think it's needed. Obviously, to talk about the strip andhopefully go more in depth into the storylines. Right? I see achapter about storylines which the exhibit doesn't have. And also Iwant to have a chapter that discusses more in depth modernism.Returning back to the labels, I really appreciate your kind wordsabout the bilingual signage and all the decal images. But a label'sonly this big. It's not a chapter.
So there's stuff I want to writemore about that's already on the walls. Part of this reasoning isbecause I didn't want the exhibit to be very text heavy. I wasconscious of that there was enough words on the wall because of theinclusion of Spanish and English, which was a balancing act of space.I was mindful and concerned to not write too much text for the labelsbecause I wanted the actual words of the strip to jump out.
MariannePorter: To speak for itself. Yes.
Michael Swanwick: I will definitelybuy that book.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: That's what I'm working on. AndI'm trying to find a publisher that will allow me to put in a lot ofcolor images, because I think the color is important to the Sundaystrips. Because he plays with color. Not in all of them. But they'rebeautiful.
Plus a lot of people have reached out to me, asking, Isthere going to be a catalog for the exhibit? No, there isn't. Itisn't something the Billy Ireland does. But they/we are coming outwith a booklet for the exhibit, and their communications officeshould be finishing it soon so it can be available to all visitors.The booklet has some of the colorful strips in it.
I've been writinga lot of stuff in the past year about Gus, so I'm on my way to finishmy book soon. But I also want people to feel… that this exhibit wasnot not just a two-year project. This has been a labor of love, andthe thought that it's going to come down in May, it's a little likemy child is going away. So I feel very much responsible to makecertain that the exhibit continues in other forms. My lifelong goalof making sure that Gus Arriola is part of the conversation aboutAmerican comics continues beyond this exhibit. And so that's anotherreason to write the book, to keep Gus Arriola in the conversationabout a comics canon and to establish him firmly in the history ofAmerican comics.
Michael Swanwick: Okay, have we left anything out,Marianne?
Marianne Porter: I think we did it.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I'mtrying to think, too, if there anything else. Oh! I put a bench inthe exhibit, so families could sit down, something the Billy Irelandhadn't done before, but I think hopefully lets it be a family show.
Michael Swanwick: As somebody who likes to linger over a show, Iappreciated that.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: One other thing. In thedisplay cases is a artifact that I loved and I still love. Weincluded a Gordo strip in the display case and not on the wall, andthe reason why it is not on the wall is because the strip is aboutwhen Gus Arriola is sick, and so Gordo talks to Pepito and goes. “Oh,the artist is sick.” And you see him in this bedroom. Essentially,Gus Arriola is sleeping, and someone else is drawing the strip. Theperson who drew that strip was Eldon Dedini. What happens if you'resick and you can’t make your cartoonist deadline? You call yourfriends! And so that's something important to highlight about thehistory and process of American newspaper comics—not just for GusArriola or Gordo, but for anybody involved in cartoons back in theday. You called your fellow cartoonists who helped you out. I thinkit's a really interesting meta-reference in that strip where you, youknow essentially, Eldon Dedini is the artist. You know the cartoonistis sick. Somebody else is stepping in, and you see the communicationin the draft drawings on parchment paper that went back and forthbetween the two men. Where Dedini was sending it to Gus to see if itwas okay.
Michael Swanwick: Hmm, that's good.
Marianne Porter: Yeah,yeah, that's again connections with all of the rest of Americancomics, and how it all intertwines.
Michael Swanwick: I found it veryodd at the end that Tehuana Mama, who through the entire strip hasbeen the hired housekeeper...There was never any hint of romancebetween them, and then, at the very end, to finish off the entirestrip, Arriola married them to each other Tehuana Mama and Gordo.That was such a strange thing for him to do.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Itwas a strange thing, I would agree with you. In interviews where hetalked about the end of the strip, he said he didn't want hischaracter to be lonely. He wanted Gordo to go off into the sunset,and be happy. So he married them off. His son, Carlin, had passedaway--what was it?—ten years before the end of the strip. Gus wasgetting older. The laborious task of doing daily strips, Sundaystrips, all of that... He was just tired. He said it was time.
He wassad. He was grieving still, and so I don't think he wanted to end ona somber note. He, I think, in many ways since this was his body ofwork, he wanted to have his character ride off into the sunset.Which, literally, is the last strip. They go on the bus, and theyride off into the sunset.
Michael Swanwick: That sounds good. Yeah.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: A very Hollywood kind of ending. If you thinkabout it.
Michael Swanwick: The image of the two of them dancing isvery sweet.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: It is very sweet. We also can'tforget all of us when we think of it, that he was with his wife, MaryFrances, his whole life, and so he had a very supportive partner whomhe met at Screen Gems right, Someone who helped him out with thestrip. And so, in many ways, I think the ending is also an homage tohis love and dedication to Mary Frances and Mary Frances to him.
Above: Images courtesy of and used with the kind permission of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum,
*
April 4, 2024
One Last Urging On Behalf Of Locus
.
Once more unto thefundraiser, dear friends, once more;
Orclose the wall up with our Locus dead...
The Locus fundraiser is into its last days, and if you haven't made a contribution, however pittance-y, I urge you to do so.
Why? Well... Fifty years ago, the center of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, was made up of three magazines: Analog, F&SF, and Asimov's. Everyone who was serious about genre had a subscription to one or more, or at least knew second-hand the highlights of what was going on in them. As a result, there was a lot of productive influence-swapping between writers and artists who ostensibly had very little in common. As well as producing in everybody a sense that we are all one big, metaphoric family.
Those magazines still exist but they don't have the importance they once did. There are so many other outlets for genre fiction that it's entirely possible for an intelligent reader to have no special feeling for any of them.
As that happened, Locus moved into that center. It is where we go to learn what is happening in our intermingled triune of genres, and to discover books and writers that will become important to us and which we would never have discovered otherwise.
Without Locus, your favorite genre, authors, and books will continue on as before. But the richness, the interconnectedness, the family feel will diminish. I do not say that it will dwindle and depart into the West. But we will all be the poorer for the loss.
Also, there are some pretty neat nifty perks remaining, for those who need to buy a present for that beloved nerd-who-has-everything. Especially if that happens to be yourself.
You can find the fundraiser here. But hurry! There's less than two days left.
*
April 1, 2024
THREE E-Book Sales in TWO Days!!!!
.
I remember, years ago in Chengdu, China, when Neil Gaiman showed Nancy Kress, Rob Sawyer, and me a thing called a Kindle Reader, which he'd been beta-testing and said, "This is inferior to any book and superior to any library, because you can throw it into your suitcase and take hundreds of books with you." He predicted that it would make e-books a real commercial item.
The man was, as usual, right.
Which leads neatly into the fact that Open Road Media is putting three of my e-novels on sale over the next two days.
On Tuesday, April 2, Bones of the Earth will be available for $1.99 in the United States and Canada.
And on Wednesday, April 3, The Iron Dragon's Daughter and Vacuum Flowers will be available for $1.99 each in the US and Canada.
Those are good deals. So if you read e-books and you'd like to some of mine... well, you couldn't get a softer sell than this from a talking gecko.
*
March 29, 2024
The First-Ever Dragonstairs Press Book Launch!
.
I am fresh back (or perhaps the phrase juste should be "exhausted back") (or was, when I first began this post, before a seemingly endless stream of friends decided to die, requiring me to write memorial after memorial for them, thus postponing this far more cheerful post) from the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Where academics and writers share a common time and space and have as little to do with each other as humanly possible.
And where Dragonstairs Press (owner, editor, and proprietor: Marianne Porter) held its first-ever chapbook launch!
This was for a chapbook that could be bought at ICFA but hasn't yet been made available to the general public. Marianne tells me it will go on sale sometime in April, on a date not yet selected.
The chapbook, pictured above, is Comicosmics. This is a play on Cosmicomics by the late, great Italo Calvino. The flash fictions I wrote are homages to Calvino but gender-reversed with the narrator being not "Old Qfwfq" but his ex-wife. Who had her own contrarian takes on his exploits.
The chapbook launch took place on Saturday afternoon, immediately after the poolside Locus photograph of all the con's participants. I talked briefly about Calvino and his unique take on SF ("science... fiction? What an intriguing idea"). Then I read one of the flash fictions I'd crafted for the occasion.
There was a good turnout of Dragonstairs aficionados. Everyone had a very pleasant time. And a significant fraction of the chapbooks were sold on the spot. The rest will be put on sale sometime in April, almost certainly on a Saturday at noon Philadelphia time. I'll let you know just as soon as I know myself.
Above, first paragraph: In all fairness, at a lunch organized by Sally Grotta, I did meet a mathematician who told me that the very little I knew about dark matter was entirely wrong; so there was at least one useful exchange of information between academia and "the creatives."
*
Michael Swanwick's Blog
- Michael Swanwick's profile
- 546 followers
